Lenovo builds a showcase office

Computer maker's new headquarters uses art and technology to engage and attract clients

MORRISVILLE -- Lenovo designed its new headquarters to dazzle.

Combining Asian-inspired decor and natural materials with state-of-the-art technology, the $154 million campus is a showcase, not only for the computer company's products, but for Lenovo itself.

The company, born through the merger of a Chinese computer manufacturer and IBM's personal computer division in 2005, is drawing from both cultures as it builds a new business and wins customers around the world.

The theme starts in the lobby, where one wall is built of stacked stones. A large, round bamboo portal visible through glass doors glows with blue light.

Inside a showroom, visitors see clusters of thick bamboo stalks displaying Lenovo's Chinese gadgets rise out of beds of smooth, round pebbles. Products that Lenovo inherited from IBM are set off on bright-red pedestals designed to replicate the eraserlike track-points that are hallmarks of IBM's ThinkPad computers.

In a hallway between meeting rooms, an interactive screen showing a placid pool of water ripples and splashes as customers and employees pass. The magic, achieved with hidden cameras, is designed to be a conversation starter, said Andrew Flanagan, executive director of training and customer centers for Lenovo, and the center's designer.

"That's what this company is all about," he said. "It's something entrepreneurial, something you wouldn't typically see in a corporate environment."

It's all meant to engage and excite prospective customers and turn them into loyal partners. The 37,000-square-foot innovation center, which occupies the first floor of one of Lenovo's two buildings in Perimeter Park, features the showroom, briefing rooms, workshops and training areas.

And there will be plenty of customers to dazzle; Flanagan expects well over 5,000 visitors in its first year. About a half dozen Lenovo customers, including Bank of America and Medco Health Systems, toured the facility before its first official client visit this week, he said.

Most technology companies have showcases of some sort at their headquarters, but Lenovo's facilities go a step further, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with The Enderle Group. Lenovo is selling an experience, not just a piece of hardware, he said.

"They need to be able to demonstrate that experience," Enderle said. "When it works, it can do a phenomenal job of getting people over into their side and wanting to purchase their products and live within their ecosystem."

Attracting and keeping customers is key for the company, a distant No. 3 in the competitive global market for personal computers. A household name in China, Lenovo is still building its brand in Western markets.

So far, the majority of Lenovo's clients outside Asia have been large corporate customers who buy the company's computers in bulk for their employees. Those companies and Lenovo's product development partners will be the typical visitors to the Morrisville innovation center.

The company will be able to harness the new center as it expands in the consumer and small-business markets, Flanagan said.

The Morrisville customer center is the third he has designed for Lenovo. The first, which opened a year and a half ago in Beijing, created a light, bright environment with products displayed on giant eggs to symbolize newly hatched ideas. The second, a futuristic facility in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, opened in December.

Lenovo also wants to attract and retain employees, who aren't left out of the new headquarters' amenities. Work spaces are equipped with wireless Internet access and filled with natural light from walls of windows. Small groupings of plush chairs are positioned for impromptu meetings or taking a break. Next year, employees also will be able to watch the Beijing Olympics, which Lenovo is sponsoring, in a first-floor lounge with flat-panel televisions.

Outside, a garden between Lenovo's two buildings will feature a waterfall and a zigzag walkway, Flanagan said.

About 1,600 people, many of them former IBM employees, work for Lenovo in the Triangle in product development, sales and marketing, engineering and a variety of headquarters functions. In 2005, the company decided to expand its operations at the new campus in Morrisville, later making it the global headquarters, after it received a promise of $14 million in state and local incentives.

The company's products are manufactured mostly in China.

The headquarters is a smart investment to help Lenovo stand out in a highly competitive market, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.

"Spending money on showing that you're in the forefront and that you care about image, I think is a calculated gamble ... that's likely to pay off," he said.